Jordan Werre (B.A., academic emphasis, student of Sumanth Gopinath) and Marching Band member Jason Gades were commissioned by the Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association to compose short works for an innovative music festival in Southeast Minneapolis. The festival, underwritten by a grant from the University's Good Neighbor Fund, revitalizes the traditional role that bells have played in calling communities together, and will take place at 1 p.m. on May 4 at the First Congregational UCC.

Tom Ashworth (trombone) has submitted four successful grant proposals in the past year, and was most recently awarded a $6,500 CLA Imagine Grant for Special Events for the 2014 U of M Brass Symposium: Building Musical Bridges. The symposium will feature area professional brass ensembles, U of M student ensembles, and eight high school and college ensembles at Lloyd Ultan Recital Hall and Ted Mann Concert Hall. In addition, the ensembles will perform at local schools, nursing homes, hospitals, and churches. The April 2014 symposium will feature faculty members in several panel discussions on public engagement and entrepreneurship. If your college or high school brass ensemble (quintet or larger) would like to participate in the symposium, contact Tom Ashworth.

James Dillon (composition) received a glowing review from The Guardian in the article "A Guide to James Dillon's music." Reviewer Tom Service writes, "...Dillon has created some of the most inventive and thrillingly expressive contemporary music around" and "Dillon's music is fearlessly, relentlessly explorative. To hear it is to confront a volcanic imagination that makes listening an act of thrilling, vertiginous unpredictability." Read the review.

Anabel Wirt (recruitment and engagement coordinator) has joined the Board of Directors of Keane Sense of Rhythm, a non-profit dance company whose mission is to preserve, present, create, and expand the boundaries of American Tap Dance through education, performance, and creation of new works, and community partnerships that invest in talented youth. Wirt will lead recruitment and marketing efforts for Keane Sense of Rhythm which thrives under the leadership of artistic director Ellen Keane, adjunct faculty of the University of Minnesota Department of Theater and Dance.